Malaria Nets, UNICEF & Going Under Cover
November 23, 2009 by Huxley
Filed under Giving Back
Since my trip to the Solomon Islands earlier this year I’ve been developing a social media strategy with UNICEF’s malaria task force. The realisation of this collaboration is the UNDER COVER Movement – an online groundswell project supporting the UNITED NATIONS international target to distribute 25 million nets to malaria endemic countries by end 2010.
UNDER COVER takes a different approach to traditional fundraising in that anyone with an Internet connection can make a difference, by direct donation or by getting a net fundraising widget for their blog or social network profile. Over the coming weeks we’ll be inviting people to get involved in this awesome initiative. Our target is 35,000 nets which will see 140,000 children protected from malaria.
To put some scale around a very complex problem, malaria (a preventable disease) is endemic in 91 countries and infects between 350-500 million people each year. More than one million people die (a person every 30 seconds) and most are young children living in Africa. Insecticide treated nets are a cheap solution and save lives by protecting children from malaria-carrying mosquitoes. By going UNDER COVER you become part of a life-saving solution.
One of the highlights of my Solomon Islands experience was Iringila – a 2000+ village community on Vella la Vella Island in the Western Province. Iringila is a remote paradise situated approximately three hours (by boat) from Gizo Island. Here I met with UNICEF Health & Nutrition Officer Winston Pitakomoki, who shared with me several malaria prevention strategies including the new insecticide treated bed nets.
HOW TO GET INVOLVED
The UNDER COVER widget can be installed onto any website or social network profile which accepts cut-paste HTML. Get your widget code here and instructions for installation, then if you’re interested in pimping avatars and social profile pics download a .zip archive containing UNDER COVER skins.
We’re also on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr so please subscribe to these profiles and get involved in the conversation.
